Former minister in High Court battle over election 'dirty tricks'

Phil Woolas, the former immigration minister, could be thrown out of
Parliament after being accused of breaking electoral law with a “toxic”
dirty tricks campaign against a general election rival.

Phil Woolas MP after retaining Oldham East and Saddleworth after 3 re-countsPhoto: REX FEATURES

By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter

7:30AM BST 13 Aug 2010

The Labour MP will appear at the High Court today to face allegations that he told “devastating and far-reaching” lies about his Liberal Democrat opponent as he tried to cling on to his seat, which he won with a majority of just 103 votes.

Mr Woolas is the first MP for 99 years to face a challenge to his election victory on the basis of publishing false statements about an opponent. If he loses the case, which is scheduled to last five days, he would face being disqualified by the court from sitting in the House of Commons.

Mr Woolas denies the allegations made by Elwyn Watkins, the defeated Liberal Democrat candidate in the Oldham East and Saddleworth constituency.

The most damaging claim is that Mr Woolas deliberately played on racial tensions in his constituency by falsely claiming that Mr Watkins was “in league with extremist Muslims”.

His team allegedly hoped that by exploiting the racial divide in Oldham, the scene of race riots in 2001, they would “bring out the white Sun-reading vote”. The incendiary remark was made in an email allegedly written by Steven Green, Mr Woolas’s campaign adviser, which is contained in court papers seen by The Daily Telegraph.

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The MP’s election agent, Joseph Fitzpatrick, allegedly sent an email in the run-up to the poll saying: “We need … to explain to the white community how the Asians will take him [Woolas] out … If we don’t get the white vote angry he’s gone.”

Mr Woolas is accused of fighting a “dirty and dishonest” campaign full of “lies, smears and totally false allegations”. Mr Watkins’s lawyers argue in High Court papers that: “Mr Woolas, believing that he was going to lose the election, resorted to terrifying white voters into believing that there was an extremist militant Muslim element in Oldham, who were in cahoots with Mr Watkins. He wished to convey the message that a vote for Mr Watkins was a vote for extremists.”

Emails between members of Mr Woolas’s campaign team, obtained by Mr Watkins’s lawyers, detail their alleged plans to claim falsely that Mr Watkins supported Islamic extremists and was “prepared to condone death threats” against Mr Woolas to secure their vote. Pamphlets sent out by Mr Woolas also falsely suggested that Mr Watkins was receiving illegal funding from abroad and had lied about where he lived, it is claimed.

Mr Woolas is accused of breaching the Representation of the People Act 1983, in which it is an offence to “make or publish any false statement of fact” about an opponent. Mr Watkins’s legal team claims that “Mr Woolas exploited the privilege of free speech in order to demonise his opponent and to mislead the electorate… the false statements were devastating and far-reaching, and were made in an exceptionally marginal constituency”.

Mr Woolas, the MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth since 1997, faced an uphill battle to cling on to his seat following disclosures about his expense claims by The Daily Telegraph last year.

He submitted receipts for items including tampons and women’s clothing, though he denied that he had claimed back money for the items on his expenses.

He was also widely criticised for his handling of the row over Gurkha resettlement rights, in which Joanna Lumley confronted him on live television.

Mr Woolas, who was unavailable for comment last night, is expected to give evidence to the High Court later this week. Mr Watkins declined to comment.